Aquinas’ concept of change and its consequences for corporeal creatures

• Authors: Dziurosz-Serafinowicz Dominika
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper is a presentation of Aquinas’ concept of change (lat. mutatio) and its consequences for corporeal creatures (lat. creatura corporali). Within Thomas’ philosophy, it can be proved that creatures are sentenced to unceasing change and cannot stop changing. That’s why the very purpose of change – full actualisation – is never attainable. Creatures are imperfect beings, and ex sui natura cannot attain perfection. Such a vision can lead to a conviction that the world of corporeal creatures is absurd. A short solution to the problem of absurdity is given with the use of Aquinas’ concept of participation. The structure of this paper is as follows. In the first section some basic limitations for the sake of this paper are made. In the second the concept of corporeal creatures is outlined. The third section analyses the definition of change. The fourth one presents various kinds of change. The next three are, respectively, proof of the creatures’ unceasing change, impossibility of full actualisation, and imperfection. The last one is an abbreviated presentation of the concept of participation as a reply to the question of the world’s absurdity.

Keywords

EN

Aquinas’ philosophy; corporeal creatures; actualisation; potentiality; change; imperfection

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Papieski Jana Pawła II w Krakowie
• Journal: Logos i Ethos
• Year: 2014
• Issue: 1(36)
• Pages: 173–186

Contributors

author

Dziurosz-Serafinowicz Dominika

• Uniwersytet Papieski Jana Pawła II w Krakowie

References

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